Jack Savoretti: The man who sings to strangers...and Kylie

Jack Savoretti has a quirky piece of symmetry to his career so far; each of his six albums have bore titles only three words long.
Jack Savoretti, who will perform at The Church in Leeds.Jack Savoretti, who will perform at The Church in Leeds.
Jack Savoretti, who will perform at The Church in Leeds.

When asked if that is intentional, he lets out a full-body laugh, deeply amused.

It’s intentional to an extent, he admits, but more through accident after he noticed the initial trend, and only since then has become a concentrated trait whenever he arrives at a new record.

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“That’s kind of something that I’ve just stuck to,” he acknowledges, amused. “I remember once reading about some artist who did the same thing.

Jack SavorettiJack Savoretti
Jack Savoretti

“All their titles were similar, they had something connecting all the albums. I just want something that at the end of all this, whatever this may be, that connects them all together.”

Does it link them together as a collective body, by repeating such a similar naming process?

“I guess it’s a bit like a last name. I want them to all feel like part of the same family.

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“The actual title (for this one) came about because it was something I overheard my daughter saying to her friends.

Jack Savoretti. Photo by Chris Floyd.Jack Savoretti. Photo by Chris Floyd.
Jack Savoretti. Photo by Chris Floyd.

“She said that her father travels the world singing to strangers and I just thought the was great.

“It’s a very simplified but very accurate definition of what I do.”

The quote Singing to Strangers indeed lends itself well to the title of a record that brings up half-a-dozen in his career so far.

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Released this month, it marks something of a slight artistic change for the 35-year-old singer-songwriter in that he already had a crystalline picture of where his work was headed before laying down a single note.

“This was the first album I’ve ever made where I had a really clear idea of what I wanted to do even before putting pen to paper and writing the first song,” he adds, when discussing his work with producer Cam Blackwood on the record.

“I knew exactly what I wanted it to sound like and there was only one guy for the job.

“Cam and I have worked previously and we’ve become sort of brothers. There’s been a real click creatively.

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“We like enthusiasm over perfection, we prefer to just enjoy it rather than pull our hair out.

“We don’t believe there’s necessarily a right way to make music; we just like to push ourselves and make it fun.”

After initially penning the album, Savoretti invited his band to London to “play around, let them sort of understand the vibe we were going for” before the whole unit decamped to Rome for recording.

“We locked ourselves in a studio for ten days, a studio that used to belong to Ennio Morricone.

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“It has numerous Oscars to its name and some of the most amazing soundtracks have come out of there. It’s just got something magic in the walls.

“It was like another member of the band, the studio, it was like the twelfth man on the pitch as they say in football. It all came together like that.”

New lead single Candlelight has handed him his biggest airplay hit to date and it remains the most resonant song on record for him too.

“I wanted it to be the first single, because it really highlights what I was trying to do.

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“It’s filled with a romantic atmosphere; there’s a lot of love songs that are missing that element and I just wanted to bring it back, since it is not always present these days.

“Candlelight was a calling card for that, for the sound I wanted to achieve.”

Singing to Strangers isn’t the only thing Savoretti has cut in recent months; last year, he was featured on Kylie Minogue’s Golden, performing Music’s Too Sad Without You, a song the pair of them penned in a session.

It was something of a pinch-me moment for him too.

“It wasn’t when I was working with her, it was the first time she started singing,” he notes when asked when it clicked he was with pop royalty.

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“I went into the studio, I met her and then we actually started writing a song together pretty off the bat.

“It was a really nice creative environment and she was just a songwriter in my eyes. It was just like being with another songwriter.

“But then she asked “OK, give me the mic, let me do a take, let me sing it”. And we were all in the studio, and we gave her the mic and still I wasn’t thinking anything of it.

“And then I put my cans on and she started singing.

“That was the first time I realised, holy... that’s Kylie Minogue. That’s the first time I’ve had such a moment.

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“I was like “this is so cool, I would never have seen this coming”.”

Jack Savoretti will play an exclusive acoustic set at Church, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds on Sunday, March 17, to mark the release of Singing to Strangers. For ticket availablity check www.crashrecords.co.uk